


Weightless

by VivWiley



Series: Ancient Elements [2]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-14
Updated: 2013-04-14
Packaged: 2017-12-08 10:42:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/760449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VivWiley/pseuds/VivWiley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A flight home and a realization of what waits.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Weightless

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: The characters and situations of The X-Files are the property of 1013 Productions and Fox Broadcasting. No   
> infringement intended.
> 
> Note: This takes place in the same universe as, and after the events of "Undertow," but is a stand-alone story.
> 
> My deep thanks to Meredith who puts up with way more than she should, and who always makes just the right suggestion.

Night flight.

Fleeing from nowhere into nothingness. A window seat in an empty row, on a half-empty plane. Tired passengers taking this final flight of the day away from a place whose name they'd already forgotten.

Beneath him the country rolled away in serene and surreal darkness. The glowing sprawls of urban lights looked like coral colonies--groupings of small, single-minded creatures moving and flowing through a darkness they didn't even realize was without light. 

The plane climbed up to cruising altitude through the cloud layers until there was nothing visible below him. The lights were dim throughout the cabin, and there was only the reflection of moonlight on the clouds--infinite shades of white and grey and more grey.

He actually liked these late flights. Less crowded, dark, nearly silent, they suited his solitary nature. Afforded him time to pull inward, to sit in the quiet of an imposed darkness, and drift along on the mechanical will of the plane's flight path. He could surrender to the inevitability of departure and destination. There were no decisions to be made once he found his seat.

Up here, unable to use his cell phone--cut off from the known world, he simply was. It was a pleasant non-existence. In these times, between cases, flying from dark into dark, there was nothing behind him and nothing before him. It was an odd sort of freedom. Almost unexpected.

This, he thought, was true weightlessness. Not the zero-gravity experienced by astronauts, who merely escaped the mundane and pragmatic pull of Newtonian force on their physical bodies. No, flying through this night he felt the weightlessness of freedom from life. For these precious, dark, quiet moments there were no tugs and pulls on him, no factors anchoring him to the hard, bright realities of his existence. There was only this dim cabin, with the muted lights. An isolated time of space with no time.

Below him the night-lighted cities swam in and out of view, visible through the gaps in the clouds that rushed by under the plane's wings. Or was the plane rushing through the clouds? It didn't matter. Time and direction had no meaning in this floating world that encased him.

And yet. And yet, it wasn't entirely true that he was flying into nothingness. From nothing--yes. Another case that would simply become part of the inextricable jumble of his memories. Another brutal series of murders that would blend seamlessly into the horrors that lurked always below his consciousness, surfacing in sharp, fitful nightmares. His part done, the murderer caught, and already it was fading away into nothingness, merely another case file.

Flying through nothingness. Up here, suspended in mid-air, held up by a contraption that if he looked at it too closely would surely disintegrate under the sheer improbability of a hunk of metal being able to fly. He would be dropped into thin oxygen-starved atmosphere--unable to breathe, unable to do anything but tumble and tumble into the final unknown. Nothing to brake his fall, nothing to buoy him. But....

Before him....ahead of him was something he was flying toward. Something that he didn't dare even name because if he tried to name it or touch it, it might simply slip through his fingers--as insubstantial as the whips of clouds through which this plane flew. Clouds that could hide lethal storms, and obscure vision, but that ultimately were nothing more than water and air. Yet, it wasn't the individual components that mattered. It was what they became together.

The idea that there was something else was too new to think about clearly. It still seemed impossible that there could be anything in front of him. But there was. He held on to the thought of his destination. He let the night carry him home.

And then the bump-bounce of touching back to earth, and the heart-stopping roar of the engines reversing as the plane all-too slowly reduced its speed to finally reach the safe taxi speed that would take them to the gate. Always it seemed to him that the plane was reluctant to cut the speed, to slow to something reasonable or safe. 

Stepping out of the plane onto the walkway, he felt the chill air seeping in around the loose seal. Earth-bound once more, he felt the weight of the past 2 weeks settling on his shoulders, pressing down on his spine. Vague aches making themselves known now at this late hour, in this cold winter night. He shivered as he walked up into the harshly lighted terminal.

He found himself scanning the faces of the half-dozen people waiting at the gate, looking unconsciously for the one face. Her face. He knew she wouldn't be there. He didn't expect her to be there. And yet, he couldn't suppress the sharp bite of disappointment at her absence. He growled incoherently at himself and trudged out of the departure/arrival lounge and toward the main terminal.

It was late--so late that all the shops and bars and coffee shops were gated and shut down. Abandoned storefronts that beckoned the weary travelers with bright displays and then denied them with the dark windows and padlocked doors. There was no one alive in the world but the people straggling off the plane--their footsteps both echoing and being swallowed up by the cavernous spaces of the airport.

On the way out he debated with himself the relative merits of taking a taxi--probably faster if there wasn't a line, but more expensive--versus the metro. Finally the metro won, simply because he knew he could be assured of not having to talk to anyone. He was so tired, had no more words left. The metro would take a little longer, but he had very little luggage, and it would be silent.

The four-block walk to his apartment from the metro station was eerily deserted. He seemed to have carried a surrounding atmosphere of silence and dark with him. For a moment he was weightless again--alone--free from the petty annoyances of life and job and paperwork and family and past and history. Simply a man walking toward his home.

His home that would also be empty and dark and silent. Unanchored, he could drift until morning--loosed from constraint and tethers to anything resembling reality. He wondered briefly if there was a danger in this weightlessness. If he would simply lift up and away until he disappeared from anyone's consciousness.

In the dark of this night, the line between the freedom of being without weight, and the loneliness of it blurred and snarled in his gut. 

The prospect of his empty apartment seemed suddenly sinister.

But it wasn't empty.

She was there, waiting for him. 

She flowed out of the shadows, almost startling him, his only warning of her presence in his darkened rooms the faint scent of her that reached him milliseconds before she pressed against him, arms reaching to wrap around him, pulling him into her. Almost desperate. Hungry.

"I missed you." He wasn't sure if she had said it, or he simply heard her thoughts echoing in his mind.

He dropped his bags and returned her embrace, one hand cradling her head against his heart. Feeling himself becoming anchored back to this world, this life, this moment. For a brief instant he missed the feeling of weightlessness, of flight, but the solid and welcome reality of her warm body in his arms evaporated the tiny longing.

She was there.

Unexpected, but essential. Had she known that he had looked for her face at the airport? Held on to the memory of her touch and taste and texture through all the lonely nights on the road?

She moved her head against his chest--seeking, restless--lifting her mouth to his. Lips touching, and retreating slightly, and then touching again, and again. Deeper. Longer. Harder. 

He felt his fatigue wash through him again, for a moment threatening to pull him down, to disintegrate him into nothing but a quivering heap of bones and rumpled clothes.

But then her tongue swept over his. Touching, exploring, claiming. And he was lost, sinking down into her, surrendering to her fierce hunger. 

She surprised him. Not just her physical presence, but her need, her fire. Her wordless demand for all of him. Her hands pulled and caressed and tugged. She seemed to want to merge their bodies at the molecular level. He felt himself growing hard, hot, his need flaring to match hers.

He finally dragged his mouth away from hers, driven only by his frail body's need for oxygen. He began trailing kisses down her throat, pausing to lightly nip her earlobe, and to whisper to her, "Yes. Always. Always." He wasn't sure what he was reassuring her of, only that the words were needed.

Her head fell back, arching her neck in a form of submission that had nothing to do with any power, except the overwhelming force of what lived between them. Of the electricity that had sparked from the first moment and that had finally been acknowledged and surrendered to two months ago in that lonely beach motel.

It was still all so new--this freedom to touch her, taste her, feel her writhe and shift under his eager hands. Each time they came together felt like a new epiphany, a separate wonder. 

He felt her tugging at his coat, pushing it off his shoulders, so that his arms were briefly trapped as it slid backwards. Reluctantly he let go of her long enough to shed both his coat and his suit jacket. 

She was still wearing her suit from the office, and some distracted corner of his mind paused to wonder if she had simply worked far too late, or if she had been here waiting for him for these many hours. He would have waited for her....

She had removed her jacket, too, and began working on the slippery fabric-covered buttons of her blouse, but he still stilled her impatient fingers--moving them aside so that he could unfasten them one careful button at a time. Pausing to brush his fingers over the heated flesh he found revealed by each opening. Bending over and letting his lips linger on the beauty revealed by this simple, erotic act.

Then her blouse and bra were puddles of white on the floor, and she stood before him, swaying slightly under the force of the desire that wrapped about them--tangling them in an intricate web of passion and impulse. 

Something shifted in her eyes, and she reached out to him--still ablaze with need, but more contained now. Focused. With the same solemnity that he had shown, she undid his shirt. Pausing at the cuffs to kiss the inside of each wrist. A benediction, a promise.

Now half-naked and half-dressed, they came together again. Embarking once more on a journey of familiar rediscovery. For an endless time they simply explored. Kissing, tasting, holding. The sensation of hands roving over skin, gliding, and scratching lightly. Caressing. Loving. Skin against skin. Need meeting need. 

Moving against each other. Hunger growing, accelerating as the night grew slowly older. Breathless moans and sounds of arousal. A gasp, an answered groan.

Beneath his touch and lips, her nipples were puckered, sweet, achingly hard. He felt an answering ache in his chest and cock. In the pit of stomach he could feel the sharp greed for her growing. Insistent, hot, tight. Now. The time was now.

He broke from her grasp, just slightly. Stepped toward his bedroom. She followed--a brilliant smile gracing her beautiful face.

Still dark, still almost silent, they rid themselves of their remaining clothes and tumbled heedlessly onto the sheets. Alive, aware, awake to a joyous sense of reunion.

Tangled in each other, their journey continued. Hands grasping to pull them tight into one another, breathy laughter at unexpected touches, gentle nips. She flowed under him like quicksilver, almost elusive, but bright, and perfect. 

Her hands tugged him tightly against her--his erection firmly trapped against her soft belly. He groaned, unable to stop himself from thrusting against her. 

She smiled up at him, and then rolled to her back, parting her legs in intimate invitation. And without another thought, he sank down into her warm, wet depths, stilling only when he was sheathed completely within her.

"Ah." A swallowed gasp, and then slowly, slowly they began to move.

Sweet, deep friction. Instinct driving them forward, and upward. Their eyes met and locked--sharing the secrets of the world between them. He bent to kiss her, allowing himself to plunder her willing, dangerous mouth. The mouth he dreamed of, but this was no dream, and he continued to surge against her, feeling her meet him again  
and again.

He shifted, thrusting ever deeper, harder. Feeling her shiver as he brushed against her clitoris, their urgency echoing back and forth the points where their bodies touched, and joined, and meshed. An irresistible impetus lifting them away from everything but this moment, this second.

And speed now becoming imperative, necessity sweeping through them, pulling them headlong into a storm of senses, the sound of their bodies' slapping against each other, the taste her mouth, the feel of her hands against his back, the incandescence in her eyes, and then there was only them, and them, and them, soaring up and up...

The world faded away as she cried out, and he felt her spasm against him. Moments later his own release overtook him, and he fell through thin atmosphere, dropping endlessly through space and time, unable to escape from gravity's attraction. But just as he thought he would smash to earth, his body broken into dozens of pieces, he discovered that he was....weightless.


End file.
